Fifty Greatest Ballplayers of the Twentieth Century

As the 1900s were drawing to a close, many organizations and baseball fans developed lists of the game's greatest players of the century. Baseball Digest invited its readers to participate in a poll to select the century's best. So on one sunny Saturday in September 1999, a father and son sat on a blanket in their back yard and reviewed the history of the game to select the best of the best- the fifty greatest players of the Twentieth Century. The following list is the result of that effort. Numbers in parentheses after the players' names indicate their ranking as selected by the readers of Baseball Digest. Links will take you to a profile of the player on our web site. (We hope to eventually develop profiles for all fifty players.)

 Reviewing the list after three years, I don't see too much I would change with one glaring exception. In retrospect, Barry Bonds clearly should have made the top 50, even before his spectacular 2001 campaign. He was clearly a top-50 player, even discounting his 21st century stats. Now, I'd probably have to rank him in the top 20, minimum. He belongs with Ted Williams and Stan Musial as the three greatest left fielders ever. We might have Mel Ott and Brooks Robinson a bit too high; Joe Morgan, Tom Seaver and Rickey Henderson a bit low. The only BIG error, though, is the Bonds ranking. My only excuse is that it's pretty difficult to evaluate players in historical context while their career is still in progress. In any case, I'm letting the list stand "as is", the work of a father and son who still have fun talking baseball with each other.

1. Babe Ruth (1)
2. Ted Williams (4)
3. Hank Aaron (6)
4. Willie Mays (2)
5. Walter Johnson (10)
6. Ty Cobb (3)
7. Honus Wagner (12)
8. Rogers Hornsby (11)
9. Joe Dimaggio (7)
10. Christy Mathewson (15)
11. Lefty Grove (40)
12. Stan Musial (8)
13. Lou Gehrig (5)
14. Johnny Bench (20)
15. Mike Schmidt (22)
16. Mel Ott (NR)
17. Jimmie Foxx (13)
18. Bob Gibson (30)
19. Sandy Koufax (18)
20. Cy Young (14)
21. Mickey Mantle (9)
22. Pete Rose (16)
23. Jackie Robinson (28)
24. Tris Speaker (19)
25. Warren Spahn (26)
26. Ken Griffey Jr (29)
27. Joe Morgan (48)
28. Yogi Berra (25)
29. Ernie Banks (24)
30. Bob Feller (37)
31. Roberto Clemente (17)
32. Nolan Ryan (27)
33. Frank Robinson (21)
34. Mordecai Brown (NR)
35. Carl Hubbell (NR)
36. Tony Gwynn (41)
37. Grover Alexander (23)
38. Brooks Robinson (36)
39. Duke Snider (NR)
40. Greg Maddux (NR)
41. Eddie Collins (44)
42. Mark McGwire (43)
43. Cal Ripken Jr (33)
44. Steve Carlton (39)
45. Eddie Mathews (47)
46. George Brett (34)
47. Tom Seaver (35)
48. Joe Jackson (32)
49. Hank Greenberg (NR)
50. Nap Lajoie (38)

Players on the Baseball Digest list who are not on ours: George Sisler (31), Carl Yastremski (42), Al Simmons (45), Barry Bonds (46), Roger Clemens (49), Rickey Henderson (50).

 

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The list has generated a few rebuttals over the years. Below are a couple of them, along with my responses.

What a joke!  Explain to me how Barry Bonds is not on your list of greatest players????  And what about Roger Clemens?  Get a clue!
-- Tim

Response: A couple of points:

a) the list was created in 1999, and therefore represents players' accomplishments through that time. That is roughly 81 Clemens victories and 258 Bonds home runs ago. If I were to update the list today to be "Fifty Greatest Ballplayers since 1900" I probably would include both those players in that list. It's also worth noting that the Baseball Digest list of "Top 50 Players of the Century", which represents the votes of 1,497 fans, does include Bonds and Clemens, but at 46th and 49th respectively. Bonds got votes from 668 fans, Clemens from 673, meaning that in both cases MOST of the people who voted left them off their ballot. So my opinion was hardly outrageously different from what many people were thinking at the time. Also, The Sporting News ran a list of the Fifty greatest players about the same time, and Clemens wasn't on their list either.

b) On the page itself I acknowledge that, in retrospect, Bonds should have been included on the list, even using just his accomplishments through 1999.

Honus Wagner at number 7? Honus is arguably the best baseball player that has ever lived. He should be number 1. Babe Ruth's baseball card isn't worth $500,000. -- Alex

Response: The key word in your sentence is "arguably." Honus was a great one, no doubt, but he ISN'T generally ranked by most people as the greatest player ever. In the Baseball Digest poll that my list was a part of, he got only 8 first place votes (out of 1,497 votes cast) and was ranked 12th, well below where I have him. It is an admittedly subjective process (that's what makes it fun), and you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

The value of Wagner's famous baseball card is based on scarcity, not necessarily an evaluation of his skill as a player.